The Tigers’ Miguel Cabrera feasted on Astros’ pitching over the weekend. He went 8-for-17 with two homers and seven runs batted in.

That left him with a .385 batting average and 36 RBIs, both of which happen to lead the American League.

Are you thinking what I’m thinking?

This is the same Miguel Cabrera who last season became the first major leaguer in 45 years to win the triple crown — that is to lead his league in batting average, home runs and RBIs in the same season. Could it happen again? If it does would Cabrera be making baseball history?

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Of course he could do it again. Entering play yesterday he led the league in two categories and trailed by four in home runs. He’s a great hitter and it’s clearly within the realm of the possible that he could again lead the league in all three categories.

Would that make history? And how.

Since 1878 only 15 players have the triple crown in one of the major leagues. Only two did it twice. No one has ever done it consecutively.

The Cardinals’ Rogers Hornsby came the closest. In 1921 he led the National League in batting and RBIs, and was second in homers. A year later he batted .401 with 42 dingers and 152 RBIs to win his first triple crown. Three years later, 1925, he became the first player to win a second triple crown.

Even the great Hornsby couldn’t pull off two in a row.

The other player to win two triple crowns was Ted Williams of the Red Sox, whose first bid for two in a row was ruined by World War II.

The Thumper led the American League in all three categories in 1942, then spent the next three years serving his country. He didn’t put a baseball uniform on again until 1946, when he bated .342, hit 38 homers and knocked in 123 runs Those numbers placed him second in all three categories.

The next year his average went up by a point to .343, but the other numbers went down. He homered 32 times and drove in 114 runs. Yet this time he won his second triple crown. A year later he again won the batting title, but trailed the Yankees’ Joe DiMaggio in home runs and RBIs.

Interestingly, eight triple crown winners have won batting titles the following year. Only one — the Cardinals’ Joe Medwick — kept his RBI title the following year and no one has ever repeated as home run champion.

One player who didn’t repeat as batting champion was Mickey Mantle who batted .353 when he won the triple crown in 1956. The following year his average improved to .365, but that was well short of the .388 posted by Williams.

One of the repeat batting champions was Nap Lajoie, who batted .422 with 125 RBIs and 14 homers for the Philadelphia Athletics in 1901, the first year of the American League. Lajoie had jumped from the National League’s Phillies when the AL was formed and the Phillies challenged the move in court.

In 1902 Lajoie played exactly one game for the A’s before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court handed down a ruling that Lajoie belonged to the Phillies and could play for no other team. The A’s hastily traded him to Cleveland and got him out of the state before he could be served with court papers binding him to the Phillies. The rest of the year he played for Cleveland but was forced to remain outside of Pennsylvania. He couldn’t make road trips to Philadelphia or travel with his teammates by rail on any train that entered Pennsylvania.

As a result he wound up playing only 87 games but still captured the 1902 batting title with a .378 mark. His limited playing time assured that could not repeat his championships in the other categories.

Lajoie isn’t the only player to be traded a year after achieving a triple crown. Chuck Klein won a triple crown in 1933 even though his team, the Phillies, finished seventh in the eight-team National League. During the offseason the cash-strapped Phillies shipped Klein to the Cubs for three players and $65,000. The following year he was limited to 115 games and didn’t come close to repeating his 1933 numbers.

A FEW STATISTICS (Wednesday’s games not included): Besides his other achievements, Cabrera happens to be batting .535 with runners in scoring position. ... Wilin Rosario of the Rockies is batting .417 on the road and only .184 at Coors Field. Now, that’s a switch. ... The Marlins, no doubt, miss Giancarlo Stanton’s bat. They don’t miss the .891 fielding percentage he compiled in the outfield. ... A’s pitcher Bartolo Colon has issued only one walk in 37 1/3 innings. He has struck out 23. ... The White Sox are last in the major leagues in both hits and walks. They’re team on-base percentage is a sickly .276 ... The Pirates have won 18 games. Jason Grilli has saved 13 of them...The Tigers’ Doug Fister has hit nine batters. No other pitcher has hit more than four. ... The Royals have hit only 17 home runs, but two of them have been grand slams...The Phillies’ Michael Young has grounded into 10 double plays — two more than anyone else. ... The A’s are 13-3 against teams in their own division and 5-13 against everybody else. ... The Rangers’ Yu Darvish has struck out 76 batters, No other pitcher has fanned more than 58. ... The Twins are 10-5 in day games but 4-10 at night.

— Hall of Fame voter Jay Dunn has covered baseball for The Trentonian for 45 years. Reach him at jdunn8@aol.com